four approaches · literature” as well as on the reactions of japanese intellectuals towards the...

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EBVERLAG

Lisette GebhardtYuki Masami (Eds.)

Literature and Art after “Fukushima”

Four Approaches

Lite

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nd A

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fter

“Fu

kush

ima”

Lise

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Geb

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BERLIN

[ WWW.EBVERLAG.DE ]

The four essays of the volume Literature and Art after “Fuku shima“ focus on the question as to what extent the three-fold catastrophy of Fukushima may be considered a turning point also for the Japanese literature and art scene, how those unprecedented events have been received so far, and what positions were taken up by Japanese authors, theater directors, and performance artists in their works and productions following 3/11.

Lisette Gebhardt is professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Germany. Recently she turned her interest to “Fukushima” and commented on the Japanese “earthquake literature” as well as on the reactions of Japanese intellectuals towards the catastrophe in north Japan.

Yuki Masami is professor at Kanazawa University/Japan where she teaches environmental literature and English as a Foreign Language. She has been publishing books and articles on American and Japanese environmental literature with special focuses on topics such as literary soundscapes, urban nature, and discourses on food and toxicity.

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Reihe zur japanischen Literatur und Kultur German Studies on Japanese Literature and Culture

Volume 7

Diese Publikation entstand in Kooperation mit dem Interdisziplinären Zentrum für Ostasienstudien (IZO / Projekt „Fukushima und Tschernobyl“) der Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main.This publication was supported by the Interdisciplinary Centre for East Asian Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt.


Lisette Gebhardt, Yuki Masami (Eds.)

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Four Approaches



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Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet überhttp://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche BibliothekDie Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographie data is available in the Internet at [http://dnb.ddb.de].

Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Dieses Buch, einschließlich aller seiner Teile, ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen sowie die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen bedürfen der schriftlichen Genehmigung des Verlags.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

Lisette Gebhardt and Rainer Kuhl using an image by courtesy of MUJIN-TO Production, Tokyo: Chim↑Pom LEVEL 7 feat. “Myth of Tomorrow”, 2011 © Chim↑Pom

Printed and bound in Germany by: Hubert & Co., Göttingen

Layout: Rainer Kuhl

Proofreading: Laura Kay Robertson, Christian Chappelow

Edited by: Lisette Gebhardt and Masami Yuki

Coordination: Volker Paulat


5„Fukushima“. Wissen er / fahren: Vor Ort

Contents

Preface ............................................................................................... 7

Lisette GebhardtPost-3/11 Literature: The Localisation of Pain – Internal Negotiations and Global Consciousness .......................... 11

Yuki Masami Post-Fukushima Discourses on Food and Eating: Analysing Political Implications and Literary Imagination ........... 37

Ina HeinNarratives of Trauma and Healing in the Aftermath of Japan’s Three-fold Catastrophe: Yoshimoto Banana’s Sweet Hereafter .. .... 53

Lisa MundtBack to Politics: Artistic Disobedience in the Wake of “Fukushima” ............................................................ 77

Contributors ..................................................................................... 109

Nachtrag / German Afterword ......................................................... 111

Index ................................................................................................. 113


7Preface

PrefaceLiterature and Art After Fukushima

In September 2012, the contributors of this volume formed a panel entitled “Literature and Art After Fukushima” at the British Associa-tion for Japanese Studies (BAJS) Conference, which was held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. Employing different approaches to discuss literary and artistic responses to the disaster at Tokyo Elec-tric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, the papers given at the panel supported each other in a way that allows for a multifaceted view of what “Fukushima” represents. We felt that these voices are worthy of being printed and shared in a small book form.

While bringing “Fukushima” into focus, at the BAJS panel we attempted to discuss how Japanese literature and art responded to the challenge of the three-fold catastrophe of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in the northeastern Japan, a disaster which is called 3/11 or the Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災 Higashi Nihon Daishinsai). Our shared interest lied in how writers and theatre/perfor-mance artists act in response to an immense human disaster which also ravaged and wiped out human conceptual realms to the extent that many writers and artists demonstrated nothing but their inability to give expression to what the disaster did – and meant – to them. Clearly there was an emerging environment in which writers and artists were urged to work on the task of exploring ways in which to grasp and give shape to the post-Fukushima age. It is the second time that Japan has had to cope with radioactive contamination, but this time the catastro-phe was not due to the ravages of war but rather due to the hubris of economy and science.

Repoliticisation and healing

Literary and artistic responses to 3/11 cover a wide spectrum, rang-ing from the overtly political (eg. concerning issues such as the pos-sibility of art to excite discussions on a more emancipated Japanese


Preface8

demo cracy, as well as on citizens’ empowerment and more transpar-ency in the political decision process) to the apolitical (eg. Yoshimoto Banana’s literary stance, as Ina Hein examines in her essay collected in this book). While asking whether artistic engagement with 3/11 aims at a (re)politicisation of art or at using art in a therapeutic way to heal a traumatised nation, the contributors to this book focus on a corpus of works, written or staged, which immediately responded to 3/11, thus providing a baseline study of Japanese post-Fukushima literature and art. Covering different aspects, the four essays included in this volume delineate how literature and art perceive Zeitgeschichte, to communi-cate the impressions of sensitive witnesses and the Heisei-type of the engaged intellectual. In this first overview, which foremost intends to delineate and describe the articulations of the Japanese artists, refer-ences to the usual theoretical body is being consciously avoided.

Lisette Gebhardt draws a detailed picture of a Japanese literary scene divided into two fractions: a critical camp of writers that attack the “ J apanese system” and a conservative camp that calls for “old tradi-tions” in order to reconstruct a Japanese identity and a “sound nation.” Gebhardt also points out how Japanese thinkers try to mediate the catastrophe glo bally and to restore the loss of reputation Japan has suf-fered with the nuclear damage.

Ina Hein analyses Yoshimoto Banana’s narrative Sweet Hereafter (2011), that does not directly address the events of 3/11, but links them together by dedicating the novel to all the people who have experienced the triple catastrophe. Hein shows how Yoshimoto redirects the device of “healing” (iyashi), which has been one of the main characteristics of her oeuvre so far, in order to connect her novel to the wider context of Japan’s traumatic experience.

Yuki Masami discusses literary representations of post-3/11 food-scapes, contrasting it with the language used in a popular social and political campaign of eating food from stricken areas as a gesture of support. In particular, Yuki analyses Taguchi Randy’s literary attempt to question, explore, and redefine human relationships with the envi-ronment, a topic which Yuki has been exploring and was first addressed in her paper given at the conference “Comparing Fukushima and Cher-nobyl: Social and Cultural Dimensions of the Two Nuclear Catastro-phes” which was held in Frankfurt, Germany, in March 2012.


9Preface

Lisa Mundt discusses the political potential of theatre today, repre-sented for example by such artists as the members of the performing art collective Chim↑Pom and the director of the ensemble Port B, Taka-yama Akira, groups which clearly demonstrate their desire to contri-bute to a change in Japanese society.

“Discover Tomorrow”: Toward Japan’s future

Over a year has passed since the BAJS Conference in Norwich, but the discussions developed in this book remain relevant. While the Japanese cultural scene continues dealing with the Great East Japan Earthquake and its consequences, the arguments do not seem to demonstrate sub-stantial shifts in focus, approach, or direction. Many artists proclaim that, with the disaster of Fukushima Daiichi, an irreversible paradigm shift has begun. They are protesting against a “Japanese system” whose failures are not only limited to the damaged nuclear plant, insisting that a day of reckoning has come for the nation’s technocratic sys-tem which has only accelerated since the 1960s. Others seek above all to show their solicitousness and to encourage the victims in Tôhoku, facilitating local reconstruction, and clearing a horizon of hope for the future of both Tôhoku and the nation as a whole.

Japan just recently gained a quite impressive yet controversial per-spective for its future – the IOC decided on September 7, 2013 in Bue-nos Aires to award the Summer Olympics 2020 to the city of Tôkyô. The slogan of the bid was “Discover Tomorrow”. Prime Minister Abe Shinzô promised that the metropolis would be a safe place for the games, and that the situation in northeastern Japan was “under con-trol”, adding that “It has never done or will do any damage to Tôkyô”, 150 miles away from Fukushima Daiichi.

Summer Olympics 2020 in the capital may provide support for the Japanese economy and certainly will lift the sunken morale for the nation, too. As far as the first cheerful reactions of the committee suggest, the event may bring the desired motivation to move forward with courage. The risk of Fukushima can be trivialised and neglected by Tôkyô, if we follow Prime Minister Abe’s comments. However, the successful bid is in the end likely to symbolise efforts to overcome


Preface10

Fuku shima-related problems. Now, Japan has to cope outright with the situation in Tôhoku and finally take responsibility not only for Tôkyô but for the world. Forthcoming discussions in literary and art scenes should demonstrate various perspectives from which to critically think about the games and if they really will mark a positive turning point for Japan.

Lisette GebhardtYuki MasamiOctober 2013


11Internal Negotiations and Global Consciousness

Post-3/11 Literature: The Localisation of Pain –Internal Negotiations and Global Consciousness

Lisette Gebhardt

1. Mapping a catastrophe: Fukushima, Japan and the world

The three-fold catastrophe of 11 March, 2011 has changed the global image of Japan as well as the country’s image of itself. Doubts have arisen concerning Japan’s status as an advanced technological nation. “Fukushima”1 has come to signify, therefore, not only the human disas-ter but also the damage to Japan’s reputation. Within Japan, politicians have been accused of a lack of professionalism and integrity; they have also been accused of lying to the public.2

Indeed the policy makers who relied on the electricity company TEPCO for information about the damaged nuclear power plant initi-ally pursued a strategy of appeasement.3 In the long term this led to the nuclear disaster being underplayed. There is still a tendency to speak of the catastrophe as merely a regional event, limited to the northeast of the country.4 In the capital the cold shutdown was finally acknow-ledged and a “new normality” was proclaimed. In Tôhoku, northeas-tern Japan, however, this level of adaptation and acceptance has still

1 “Fukushima” has been put in inverted commas because the name of the place has become a multivalent key term which amalgamates several aspects of this triple catastro-phe.2 The government’s information policy in particular was subject to criticism (see for instance the statement by Hama Noriko, Vice Dean of Dôshisha University, quoted in the article “Japan government on nuclear crisis: Not lying, not telling the truth”, 2011). The full political background of the catastrophe has not yet been explored; tentative thoughts are offered in Kingston (2012).3 The official report by the Japanese Government of June 2011 is a first attempt to investigate the events.4 Regionalising “Fukushima” does not mean that the government in Tôkyô has conti-nuously made help available to victims in the area. Clear-up operations and the building of emergency shelters have been relatively successful but the resolution of the problems posed by the damaged reactors, the disposal of radioactive material and the administration of the restricted area were less satisfactory. For awareness of the problems see the essay by Gen’yû Sôkyû (2011).


53Narratives of Trauma and Healing

Narratives of Trauma and Healing in the Aftermath of Japan’s Three-fold Catastrophe:

Yoshimoto Banana’s Sweet Hereafter

Ina Hein

1. Introduction

This paper, rather than starting from the broader perspective of “ Japanese literature after 3/11”, focuses on a single author: Yoshimoto Banana, who is not regarded as a political writer but rather as a pro-ducer of popular, easy-to-read bestselling novels, short stories and essays. Yoshimoto has become exceptionally popular with her writing, which might well be placed within the context of iyashi lite rature,1 not only in Japan itself but also outside of Japan in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, and, accordingly, her work has been (and continues to be) exten-sively covered by literary criticism and research.

In order to provide a backdrop against which Yoshimoto’s most recent novel, Suîto hiâfutâ (Sweet Hereafter, Yoshimoto 2011a), will be analysed, a brief sketch of the general characteristics and devel-opments of her writing over the past 25 years will first be presented. The central question for the subsequent analysis of Suîto hiâfutâ will be, by what means –

1 The term iyashi could be translated as a kind of emotional and sometimes even spiritual ‘healing’. For a closer look at the iyashi concept and its mode of operation in contemporary Japanese literature, Gebhardt 2004.

Cover: Yoshimoto Banana Suîto hiâfutâ, NHK Shuppan, 2012.


37Post-Fukushima Discourses on Food and Eating

Post-Fukushima Discourses on Food and Eating: Analysing Political Implications

and Literary Imagination

Yuki Masami

1. Introduction

There is no such thing as safe food, says Koide Hiroaki (b. 1949), an anti-nuclear nuclear engineer at the Kyoto University Reactor Research Institute. Koide has emerged as a leading spokesperson for nuclear issues since 11 March 2011, when an earthquake and subsequent tsu-nami hit the northeastern part of Japan and, at least in part, caused a meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Though only recently gaining a wider audience, Koide has continually warned against the wide-ranging global circulation of radioactive-contaminated food since the disaster in reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine on 26 April, 1986. According to Koide’s mantra, a nuclear-age foodscape is illustrated, showing that there is no clean, safe food, and what is presented to us is a choice between foods that are the least contaminated, less contaminated, more contaminated, or the most contaminated. This immediately brings about a series of questions. For instance, what standard is applied to determine the degree of contami-nation? What makes such a standard legitimate? How does a standard of contamination influence individual and societal attitudes towards food? And what do such standards really mean?

A major aim of this essay is to discuss discourses on food and eating in a nuclear age, especially those that took place after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown in March 2011. The northeast of Japan, where the mega earthquake and the subsequent tsunami hit, was known for its productive agriculture and fisheries. This is clearly shown by the high percentage of the population working in primary industries in the region. Statistics show that, as of October 2005, the population involved in primary-industry in Fukushima, Miyagi, and


77Back to Politics

Back to Politics: Artistic Disobedience in the Wake of “Fukushima”

Lisa Mundt

1. “People will be questioned for the way they lived”: First thoughts on Fukushima

Artists, playwrights and directors were among the first and most radical voices to comment on Fukushima. Renowned personalities from theatre, performing arts, and fine arts such as playwrights Sakate Yôji (b. 1963, Rinkôgun), Okada Toshiki (b. 1973, Chelfitsch), and Tada Junnosuke (b. 1976, Tôkyô Deathlock), director and performance artist Takayama Akira (b. 1969), and the artist collective Chim↑Pom spoke out about Fukushima immediately after the disaster and expressed their desire to contribute to the much felt need for change in Japanese society. All of them found challenging and creative ways to answer to the catastrophe1 – and, as Niino Morihiro (b. 1958), a professor at Rikkyô University, Tôkyô, notes, even playwrights who “had not been enthusiastic about depicting solidarity, have begun to take up the ethi-cal question of solidarity with the victims” (Niino 2012).

In an essay published in the German theatre journal Theater der Zeit (Contemporary Theatre), Okada Toshiki, playwright, director and leader of the Chelfitsch theatre troupe, notes that he only became aware of the enormous potential of theatre once the earthquake struck Japan on 11 March: “It is understood that art is vital to society […]. Before the catastrophic earthquake I would not have believed this at all. Today,

1 While a considerable amount of literature has been published on pre-modern and mod-ern Japanese theatre and drama up to the 1960s, there has been little discussion about con-temporary Japanese theatre and performing arts, especially on the interrelations between theatre and politics. Preliminary results on this topic and on the impact of “Fukushima” on theatre and performing arts in Japan have already been presented in German and English in several lectures (e.g. British Association for Japanese Studies in Norwich, UK, AAS-ICAS Joint Conference in Honolulu, German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tôkyô). This essay is based on a German paper published in the Lesebuch “Fukushima” (“Fuku shima” Reader) in Summer 2013. The results presented here will be discussed further in my upcoming dissertation on theatre and politics in contemporary Japanese theatre.


109Contributors

Contributors

Lisette Gebhardt is since 2003 professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Germany. She publishes on literature, literature and religion as well as on identity discourses and globalisation in modern Japan. In 2012, she edited a handbook on con-temporary Japanese authors and literary trends in Japan. Since spring 2011 she commented on the Japanese „earthquake literature“ (shinsai bun gaku) as well as on the reactions of Japanese authors and intellec-tuals towards the three-fold catastrophe in northern Japan. Together with Steffi Richter (University of Leipzig) she edited two volumes on the Fukushima-case.

Ina Hein has studied at Trier University (Germany) and Ôbirin Uni-versity (Tôkyô). In her doctoral thesis she analysed constructions of gender relationships in the works of contemporary Japanese women writers. She was member of the DFG-funded project „Turning (back) to Asia in Japanese literature, media and popular culture“ (Trier Uni-versity) in 2003 and researcher/lecturer at the Institute for Modern Japan, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf (Germany) until May 2010. Since June 2010, she is professor for cultural studies at the Department for Japanese Studies, University of Vienna (Austria). Her research focuses on: contemporary Japanese literature, gender relations in Japan, constructions of Asia in Japanese literature and media, the discourse on cultural differences in contemporary Japan, Okinawa in Japanese literature, film and television.

Lisa Mundt majored in Japanese Studies and Theatre, Film & Media Studies at Goethe University, Frankfurt, from 2002 to 2009. Since 2009, she has been a doctoral candidate at the department of Japanese Stu-dies at Goethe University. In 2010, she was granted a PhD fellowship at the German Institute of Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tôkyô. Her research focus is on contemporary Japanese theatre and performing arts, espe-cially on artistic discourses on social and political issues. Lisa Mundt is currently a lecturer at the department of Japanese Studies in Frankfurt


Contributors110

and has worked as an organizer and interpreter for guest performances by Japanese theatre troupes at several venues in Germany.

Yuki Masami is professor at Kanazawa University where she teaches environmental literature and English as a Foreign Language. She received her doctoral degree in English with an emphasis of literature and environment from University of Nevada, Reno, in 2000. She has been publishing books and articles on American and Japanese envi-ronmental literature with special focuses on topics such as literary soundscapes, urban nature, and discourses on food and toxicity. Her most recent book, Mizu no oto no kioku (Remembering the Sound of Water: Essays in Ecocriticism, 2010), examines relationships between language, imagination, and the environment in works of contempo-rary writers including Ishimure Michiko, Morisaki Kazue, and Terry Tempest Williams. Recently she has been researching environmental imagination in discourses of food and eating, a topic which includes lit-erary response to the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters which have continued to unsettle local and global attitudes on food.


113Index

Name index

Abe Kazushige 16, 20, 22Abe Shinzô 9, 30Asada Jirô 19Atôda Takashi 26Azuma Hiroki 15, 23

Banks, Russell 67–70Barong 56Bin Laden 28

Cohen, Leonard 67

Diaz, Junot 31

Felshin, Nina 104Fujiwara Masahiko 23Furukawa Hideo 16, 26–29

Gen’yû Sôkyû 11, 14, 15

Hama Noriko 11Harada Masazumi 40Hase Seishû 30Hatasawa Seigo 80Hayashi Kyôko 57Hayashi Mariko 30Henmi Yô 12, 13, 16, 30Hirano Keiichirô 31

Ibuse Masuji 59Ichikawa Makoto 16Ikezawa Natsuki 15, 31, 44–50Iokibe Makoto 13, 14Ishihara Shintarô 23, 25, 86

Ishii Shinji 31Ishimure Michiko 40, 110Iyer, Pico 31

Kahlo, Frida 61Kakizaki Jun’ichi 91Kakuta Mitsuyo 16, 31Karashima, David 33Katayama Kyôichi 20Kawakami Hiromi 15, 29, 30Kawakami Mieko 31Kayama Rika 13Kimoto Takeshi 26–28King, Stephen 54Koide Hiroaki 37, 40–42Kônosu Yukiko 31

Lehman 21Luke, Elmer 31

Matsuie Masashi 31Mayama Jin 21, 22Medoruma Shun 59Miyadai Shinji 13, 15Miyazawa Kenji 28Murakami Haruki 17–19, 24, 25,

54–58

Nakamura Fuminori 12Nakasone Yasuhiro 14Niino Morihiro 77–80, 83, 89, 103Nishidô Kôjin 88Nishimura Kenta 16

Ôe Kenzaburô 15, 17, 18, 57Okada Toshiki 77, 78Okamoto Tarô 90, 97–99


Index114

Onobu Pelican 80Ôshiro Tatsuhiro 59Ôtomo Yoshihide 27

Politkowskaya, Anna 21

Rangda 56Reinelt, Janette G. 77, 104

Saeki Kazumi 16, 17Sakate Yôji 77–81, 85–89, 102, 105Sakurai Ami 16Satô Aiko 25Satô Yûhei 14Shibata Motoyuki 29, 31Shigematsu Kiyoshi 15Shimazono Susumu 14Solnit, Rebecca 44Suga Keijirô 31

Tada Junnosuke 77, 78Taguchi Randy 8, 45–50Takahashi Gen’ichirô 13, 15, 30Takayama Akira 9, 77–79, 83–85,

102, 104, 112Tawada Yôko 15, 17, 57

Tsuboike Eiko 81, 82Tsushima Yûko 12, 21

Ueno Chizuko 15, 30Umehara Takeshi 14, 15, 20, 28Ushiro Ryûta 78, 91, 96, 97

Wagô Ryôichi 15, 26, 27, 57, 103

Yoshimoto Banana 8, 16, 23, 24, 53–72

Yoshimoto Takaaki 86Yû Miri 16, 57


115Index

Subject index

AC Japan 12advertising money 100aesthetic concepts 79–83, 92–105agriculture 37, 41alternative media 99anger 15, 16, 30, 69angura 81, 101, 102anti-nuclear movement 37, 79, 86,

101Aomori 41apocalyptic scenario 97artistic disobedience 77, 102atomic bomb 59, 71, 90, 98atomic bomb literature 59authoritarian society 83, 101autobiographical self-references 27,

28autonomy 15, 31

Bali 56“balm for the soul” 57betrayal of the Japanese public 89bibliotherapy 17, 28, 59Bikini Atoll 98blogs 39, 57, 78, 100bubble economy 47, 81Buddhist paradise 69butô 101, 104

capitalism 102catastrophe as a turning point of

narrative 15“cathartic quality” 94Chelfitsch 77

Chernobyl 37–40, 45–48, 112Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant 37children 27, 54, 68–70Chim↑Pom 77–80, 90–104, 112China 20, 21, 59chronicler of Japanese society 85citizen empowerment 8, 31, 79, 104cold shutdown 11, 16collective apathy 40, 42comforting vision 62community 68conflict management 104conformity enforced by the

media 13, 79“connection to the deceased person” 66conservatism 58contaminated food 37–42continuation of existing

structures 30, 99“counter culture” 82, 102, 104“counter space” 80crisis management 12, 87, 95cultural corrective 22

damaged reactor 9, 11, 18, 91, 96–100

dead plants 91demonstration(s) 102, 105“desperate suicides” 117diaspora 17disaster 7, 11, 15, 18, 22, 28, 37, 38,

44–47, 58, 69–72, 77–87, 90–99, 102–104

“disaster narratives” 70discourses of food and eating in a

nuclear age 37–50, 110


Index116

“Discover Tomorrow” 9discrimination 17, 27disintegration of family 54disintegration of social

structures 15, 23disposal of radioactive material 11,

87“divine punishment” 25, 86dystopian visions 87, 104

ecocriticism 17, 51, 110educational documentary theatre 79electrical power cuts 86emancipation from the mass

media 100empowerment of the indivi dual 104empty language 44energy policy 19environment 8, 41, 65, 91, 110environmental contamination 89essays 8, 14–17, 30, 37, 40, 45–50,

53, 77, 85–87, 103, 105ethno-romantic imagery 25evacuation 27, 48excessive consumerism 54experience of loss 12, 24, 46, 55, 61,

66–71

Facebook 24, 99faith in the state 23, 24family 48, 54, 66, 68financial crisis 21fisheries 37food safety 12, 38–49, 100food shortages 95fossil fuels 88, 89, 92freedom of speech 20

Fukushima Daiichi 7, 9, 37, 41, 44, 47, 80, 95

Futaba 38future life in Japan 84

genbaku bungaku 59gender construction 54, 109Germany 20, 101ghosts 65, 67, 71Godzilla 98Great East Japan Earthquake 7, 9,

32, 43, 95greenpeace magazin 23, 35, 44, 57guerilla-like art 90, 97guinea pig 48Gunma 41

Hamadôri 28happiness 67, 71healing 7, 8, 17, 53, 56, 63, 87hell 51, 67hibakusha 59high-level waste 87–89Hiroshima 17, 18, 45, 59, 71, 89, 98hope 9, 12, 22, 26, 28, 51, 55, 57, 94Hurricane Katrina 45hydrogen bomb 98

Ibaraki 41, 44ikebana 91, 92image of Japan 11industrial development 26information policy 11, 19inner peace 62insular self-absorption 21International Association of Theatre

Critics (IATC) 78


117Index

international community 19, 20International Research Center for

Japanese Studies 14intertextual references 56, 67, 68IOC 9irritating normality 85Iwate 38, 41iyashi 8, 53, 55, 56, 64, 71iyashi literature 53

Japan

brand 95

isolated from the rest of the

world 28

Japan Nuclear Fuels Conversion Company (JCO) 44

Japan Playwrights Association 80Japanese consumer society 30

democracy 21, 30

government 11, 12, 18, 24, 41–43,

87, 95, 97

identity 8, 14, 24, 58

intellectuals 30

literature 7, 29, 53, 54

militarism 25

national identity 58

nuclear heritage 17

soul 23, 24, 58

system 8, 9, 15, 16

Japanese hippies 48Japanese Studies 7, 14, 102Japan’s future 9, 31Japan’s involvement in global deve-

lopements 85

Kôenji 87Korea 20, 59

kotodama 26Kyôto 14, 37, 63, 65, 66

“language situation” 12life in a nuclear age 45, 50life in the zone 49liminal space between life and

death 55, 61literary explorations 45literary resistance 40, 50living conditions in Japanese

society 103lobby agents 31local patriotism 27“lonely deaths” 15loss 8, 12, 24, 46, 55, 61–71, 87, 99Lost Decade 82

mainstream media 79, 99, 100Manrui Toriking Ichiza 80March Was Made of Yarn 16, 31marginalized voices 79marine products 40matters of public interest 105meaning of life 45, 47, 50media personalities 30meltdown 7, 12, 18, 37, 41–46, 59mercury poisoning 39, 40Minamata Disease 39, 40Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and

Fisheries 41, 43Ministry of Economy, Trade and

Industry (METI) 87, 95Miyagi 14, 16, 37, 38, 41modern values 40, 50MoMa PS1 93Monkey Business 29


Index118

MUJIN-TO Production 91, 92mujô 24, 25, 58myth of safe nuclear energy 89, 102

Nagasaki 17, 18, 59, 71, 98national community 27National Defense Academy 14national emergency 13, 20

isolation 29

mindset 25

mood 13

patriotism 27

nationalism 13, 28 nationhood 87natural disaster 46, 58nervous disorder 40“new normality” 11, 31new self 56New York 29, 94next world 62, 71NGO 100Nippon Foundation 31nonfiction essays 46, 47nostalgia 54nuclear

age 37, 45, 48–50

energy 18, 20, 83–89, 92–102

heritage 17

power 11–20, 30, 37–48, 78, 83–88, 96

power plant 11, 19, 20, 37–48, 83,

88, 96

victims 18

waste 87

Nuclear Waste Management Organi-zation of Japan (NUMO) 87

Occupy movement 101Okinawa 59, 64, 65, 67Okuma 38Olympic games 9Olympics 2020 9Onagawa 38opportunity for interaction 105optimism 23, 56, 57“other world” 62

Pacific War 59PARCO 91patriotic tone 24peace movements 100peaceful use of nuclear energy 18, 20P.E.N. Club 19, 20places of communication 86“plastic words” 39plutocracy 77plutonium 89poems on Twitter 27, 57, 103political campaign 8

issues 7

novel (seiji shôsetsu) 22

stance 57

polling station 84positive turning point for Japan 10possibilities of language 71possibilities of theatre 83post-Fukushima foodscape 38post-Fukushima Japan 13post-Fukushima literature 8, 15, 26,

29post-3/11 reality 45, 46postwar artists 97PR agencies 31precarisation 23


119Index

social change 30, 103, 104social responsibility 78, 103solace 55, 71Sôma 93, 95sôteigai = unforseeability 12Soviet Union 86spiritual intellectuals 14spirituality 65student uprisings 81, 82, 100, 101supernatural elements 54support 8, 9, 41–50, 57, 81, 95, 96suppression of opinions 19symbolic deconstruction of the

nation 96sympathy with Japan 20

taboo word 12TEPCO 7, 11, 37, 41, 96, 100theatre companies 82, 86, 103thought control 13three-fold catastrophe 7, 11, 53–57,

60, 71Tôhoku 9–14, 26–28, 58, 80, 86, 92,

94Tôkaimura 44TOKIO 41Tokyo International Literary

Festival 31toxic elements 39trauma 8, 16, 17, 27, 53, 56, 59, 70,

104trauma literature 70traumatised nation 8, 104tsunami 7, 18, 29, 37, 46, 57, 78, 86,

93, 94TV 39, 41, 46, 84, 99, 100Twitter 27, 57, 85, 98, 99, 103

precarity literature 16premodern way of life 40protest culture 16, 100, 102protest movement 81, 82, 100, 101 psycho-hygienic element 22public concern 38, 39, 41

mind 44, 50

opinion 99

sphere 79

radiation protection suits 95radiation victims 18radioactive contamination 7, 15, 28,

48, 80radioactivity 12, 20, 21, 29, 39, 41,

47, 96reconstruction nationalism 13reconstruction propaganda 95Referendum Project 79, 83–85regenerative powers of nature 59repoliticisation of art / theatre / lite-

rature 7, 79, 100reports about Fukushima 28responsibility 10, 17–21, 30, 41, 42,

78, 87, 103, 104restoration 66Rinkôgun 77, 79, 81, 86

sâdaka 65, 67safe food 37San Francisco 44self censorship 13sense of reality 39sex hotline 91, 92Shibuya 28, 90, 98Shimokitazawa 81shôgekijô 80–82


Index120

Ukraine 37unity in society 43uranium 44, 89

victims 9, 11, 16–18, 48, 59, 77, 95Vietnam 101vision of paradise 69voices of the Japanese citizens 85voluntary work 93voting event 85

wartime society 13“we Japanese” 58wholeness 55, 66writing novels 22

Yamagata 41Yamanashi 41

Za Kôenji 87Za Suzunari 81Zengakuren 100Zwentendorf Nuclear Power

Plant 83


BERLIN

ISBN 978-3-86893-028-3

Stef

an B

ölts

In kurzweiliger Form zeigt Stefan Bölts, dass Kirchenre-form mehr ist, als die Kürzung von Gemeindepfarrstellen und die endlose Diskussion über Positionspapiere.

Das Thema geht uns alle an, weil die Kirche zu aller erst aus Menschen besteht und wir es sind, die im Zeitalter gesellschaftlicher Veränderungen unserem Glauben im-mer wieder neu Gestalt geben. Um so wichtiger ist es da, dass auch die uns umgebenden Strukturen klug auf ihre Umwelt reagieren.

Ein Wegweiser durch das Dickicht der Reformdiskussio-nen!

Das Netzwerk Kirchenreform versteht sich als ökumenische Lerngemeinschaft, die mit Tagungen und Workshops die Qua-lität von Lernprozessen, die interdisziplinäre Kooperation und das Netzwerk-Denken in kirchlichen Reformbewegungen för-dern und begleiten möchte. Wir möchten dazu beitragen, dass Reformprojekte gemeinsam getragen und wertvolle Impulse und Erfahrungen ausgetauscht und vernetzt werden.

www.netzwerk-kirchenreform.de

Das

kle

ine

AB

C d

er K

irch

enre

form

EBVERLAG

Lisette GebhardtYuki Masami (Eds.)


Four Approaches

Lite

ratu

re a

nd A

rt a

fter

“Fu

kush

ima”

Lise

tte

Geb

hard

t, Y

uki M

asam

i (Ed

s.)

BERLIN

[ WWW.EBVERLAG.DE ]

The four essays of the volume Literature and Art after “Fuku shima“ focus on the question as to what extent the three-fold catastrophy of Fukushima may be considered a turning point also for the Japanese literature and art scene, how those unprecedented events have been received so far, and what positions were taken up by Japanese authors, theater directors, and performance artists in their works and productions following 3/11.

Lisette Gebhardt is professor of Japanese Literature and Culture at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Germany. Recently she turned her interest to “Fukushima” and commented on the Japanese “earthquake literature” as well as on the reactions of Japanese intellectuals towards the catastrophe in north Japan.

Yuki Masami is professor at Kanazawa University/Japan where she teaches environmental literature and English as a Foreign Language. She has been publishing books and articles on American and Japanese environmental literature with special focuses on topics such as literary soundscapes, urban nature, and discourses on food and toxicity.

Cover_BAJS_7_außen_Druckerei.indd 1 15.01.2014 13:16:26

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